Fire Needs Oxygen ~ Science Sunday

As we started carving our pumpkins this week I remembered that I’d found an experiment we could do along with the hollowed out pumpkins. We ended up rolling our science time together with our Bible time and also our pumpkin carving time…and managed to kill three birds with one stone! Gotta love that!

Before we made faces on our pumpkins, but after we scooped all the yuckies out, we put a small tealight in our pumpkin, lit it, and then put the top back on our pumpkin.

Question of the Week…

What would happen to the candle flame when we put the lid back on the pumpkin?

Items we used for this experiment:

~ a pumpkin

~ a tealight candle

~ lighter/matches

Predictions and Experiment…

Each of the kids made a prediction about what they thought would happen…and not a one guessed the real answer. They thought it might blow the lid off the top of the pumpkin, start it on fire, or worse. :)

 

We put the lid on, waited about a minute and when we pulled the top off again…the fire had gone out!

The Nutshell Reason…

Fire needs oxygen to burn. Since our pumpkin was essentially sealed {we hadn’t carved out any facial features}, the oxygen was cut off. Once the oxygen is used up, the candle goes out!

After the Experiment…

After the experiment was over, we finished carving out our pumpkins and watched the candles burn {since they had plenty of oxygen now!}. Each of the kids also drew a picture on the back of their experiment sheet to show what happened during the experiment and why.

 

Resource: How to Do Science Experiments with Children is available from Amazon and you can also check it out {and do some of the experiments} using Google Docs! The experiments use easy-to-find objects and also include record sheets for kids to fill out with their predictions and experiment results. Each experiment also includes teaching tips and explanations…which are rather handy! :)

Don't forget to check out some other great science ideas at Science Sunday hosted by Ticia at Adventures in Mommydom.

 

Preschool Corner ~ Pumpkins

This week was a little bit laid back after I returned from the Relevant conference and just wanted to BE with my kids. Tuesday we took a field trip to a local pumpkin patch and the rest of the week we spent reading so many books about pumpkins while cuddled up on the couch. Basically it was a wonderful week. Laid back, relaxing and fun.

And that is a good thing!

Kaleb picked out his own pumpkin and was so excited to bring it and a little gourd home. Best part of the trip though? Mommy got to drive him around on one of the go-cart style bikes…and he LOVED that! Sadly, I have none of those pictures on my camera, but Cindy from Along the Way was MORE than happy to snap away at us being silly.

 

We read the Pumpkin Patch Parable and also My Happy Pumpkin a lot this week and talked about how Jesus scoops the ‘yucky stuff’ out of our life and HIS light shines through us. Daddy helped us carve our pumpkins one night and Kaleb decided what shapes he wanted his pumpkin to be carved in {square eyes, a cross nose and a crescent mouth}. Not like the book, but he wanted to keep the cross for the nose..and mommy had to add a tooth for fun. :)

While we had our pumpkins scooped out and ready, we also did a little science experiment {I’ll be sharing it on Sunday} and then we wrapped up our pumpkin and Bible time with the Hillsongs Tell the World dvd ~ “Let Your Light Shine” song {which turned into a ‘one more time’ several times}.

We’ve been eating pumpkin seeds all week and did MUCH more, but pictures just fell by the wayside this week as we focused on being together and having fun!

Additional Resources

• For more fall and pumpkin ideas, visit my pumpkin post from last year.
• Sharing God’s Light on Halloween from 1+1+1=1 ~ this is where we printed off a lot of the pumpkin printables this year {and last!}
• Once Upon a Book: Parable of the Pumpkin Patch ~ links to another one of the printables we used

Stories & Books We Used

More Preschool Links:

• Customizable Preschool Planning Pages
• ABC Printables
• Color and Shape Printables
• Preschool Lapbooks and Tot Books: Policemen, fireman and more!
• Learning Songs
• Math and Counting Printables
• Phonics and Reading Printables
• Science Printables
• Preschool Corner Guidelines
• Preschool Planning Pages
• Preschool Resources Main Page

Ready to Link Up?

Share what you are doing with your kids! Please link your exact blog post to the Mr. Linky below and link back here too! The updated guidelines can be found here if you need them.

 

 

Tell Your Time What to Do ~ Time Management

While I was at the Relevant Conference, I was blessed to meet and hear Crystal Paine from Money Saving Mom speak about time management. She has been using a system called Tell Your Time What to Do by Amy Lynn Andrews. Crystal will also be blogging more about how the system has changed her time management, so be sure to visit her more and see what she is sharing.

Over the past week, I’ve been reading through this e-book and starting to implement some of the suggestions. It is a simple step-by-step method and well worth the discounted price of $7 that she is offering it for right now. Use the coupon code INTHECLUB during checkout for the discount!

Navigating My Blog ~ A Quick Tour

For some of you using Internet Explorer, the top navigational bar {right under my header} isn’t showing up. I’ve played around with the html and cannot for the life of me figure out the glitch.

This is what it should look like…and it’s here that I can suggest you switch to Firefox or make sure you are using Internet Explorer 8 {grins}.

 

Since I can’t figure it out at this point, I thought it would be a good idea to have a post that details all the links that are in my top navigational bar. That way you can see some of the things that I’ve shared and find things a little more quickly when you want to look around my site. All of the words below are linked directly to the pages, so just click on whatever interests you!

Home

• About Me and Our Family
• Terms of Use
• Disclosure Policy

Website

• Website Home
• Preschool Resources
• Geography Resources
• Bible Resources
• Language Resources
• Lapbooks
• Early Learning Printables
• Workboxes
• Our Favorites

Preschool Corner

• Preschool Corner website
• Preschool Corner posts
• How to Join Us Weekly
• Printable Packs
• Early Learning Printables 
• Preschool Planning Forms
• Tot School Planning Form

ABC’s

• ABC Phonics Chart
• Alphabet Book
• Alphabet Crafts
• Alphabet Printables
• Preschool Alphabet Worksheets
• Handwriting Without Tears Worksheets
• Playdough Mats
• Letters of the Alphabet {click on the letter}: Aa, Bb, Cc, Dd, Ee, Ff, Gg, Hh, Ii, Jj, Kk, Ll, Mm, Nn, Oo, Pp, Qq, Rr, Ss, Tt, Uu, Ww, Zz

Bible 

• Raising Rock Stars
• Seeds Family Worship

Geography

• Geography Website
• Editable Homeschool Planner
• Travel Log and Passports
• Geography Resources ~ Top Picks
• Weekly Geography Planning Sheets
• Africa Unit Study Printables
• Asia Unit Study Printables
• Australia & New Zealand Unit Study Printables
• Europe Unit Study Printables
• North America Unit Study Printables
• South America Unit Study Printables
• Country Flag Cards
• Children Just Like Me Notebooking Page
• Geography Notebooking Sheet & Travel Diary

Homeschool Helps

• Our Curriculum
• Tour Our Classroom
• My Homeschool Planner
• Calendar and Morning Board
• Daily Routine
• Homeschool Binder
• Lapbook Storage
• Mini Offices
• Organizing School Paperwork
• Peel & Stick Chalkboards
• Reusing Worksheets
• Workboxes

Mom Stuff

• Friends I Love
• Babysitter Guide
• Blogging Tips
• Chore Chart Printables
• Daily To Do List
• Daily To Do List Postcard
• Emergency Binder
• Grocery List By Aisle
• Homeschool Planner
• Main Dish Menu Planner
• Monthly Menu Planner
• Recipes
• Yearly Planner

Reviews

• My Favorites
• {can see the rest of my review categories by using the categories cloud at the bottom of my blog}

Other Sites

• Homeschool Creations Website
• Facebook
• Blog Frog
• Pinterest
• Twitter
• No Ordinary Moments {Family Blog}
• Totally Tots

Hopefully that will help you all out some! :) Have fun looking around!

Drawing For Fun

Our kids love to draw…as is evidenced by the many reams of paper that have been flying through our house over the last few months. Pencils, crayons and more are scattered everywhere. All.the.time.

One site that we’ve been visiting and having a lot of fun with lately has been Draw With Rich ~ a blog by the Pick and Draw game creator Rich Davis. We love his drawing game and Rich has some great blog posts showing step-by-step instructions on how to draw other things…like doodlebugs.

Here are some of the great tips he has on his blog:

• drawing basics
• shading in drawings
• more shading examples
• line angles {drawing chins}
• drawing cartoon characters
• drawing a bird
• Doodlebugs…they’ll be all over your house!!

I subscribed to his site by email so that I get updates on his fun tutorials. Be sure to read his post on why October 25th is a special day for him ~ God is so good!!

O Canada! ~ Lesson Plans and Resources

Canada spans more than half of the Northern Hemisphere and is the second largest country in the world. It also has the world’s longest coastline ~ there are oceans on three sides. Canada’s lakes and rivers make up about 20% of the world’s fresh water.

The population of Canada is less than half a percent of the world’s population. The majority of Canada’s people live in the southern part of Canada and the largest cities are Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. Canada’s two official languages are French and English.

You can view the other countries that we’ve studied from North America on my North America geography page.

Week 1 Layout

Monday

• Introduce new song about Canada from Geography Songs
• Use atlas and globe to locate Canada
• Read one of our books from our bookshelf about Canada

Tuesday

• Review geography song
• Learn {and review} some terms: province, hemisphere, territory, bay {Hudson bay}
• Independent reading from bookshelf
• Filled out the map of Canada using our notebooking page

 

 Click on thumbnail to download pdf file

Wednesday

• Review geography song
• Took a virtual tour through Canada
• Talked about three different explorers: Leif Erickson, Jacques Cartier, and John Cabot
• Independent reading 

Thursday

• Review geography song
• Canadian National Anthem {English}
• Canadian National Anthem {French}
• Children Just Like Me book and notebooking page
• Reading Kid’s Book of Canada

Week 2 Layout

Monday

• Review geography song
• Major milestones in Canada’s history
• Learned about the flag of Canada

 

Click on thumbnail to download pdf file

Tuesday

• Review geography song
• Read book Meet Our New Student from Quebec
• Read together one of books from bookshelf

Wednesday

• Review geography song
• Story from Around the World in 80 Tales ~ The White Bear
• Read together That’s Very Canadian

Thursday

• Review geography song
• Summarized one of our reading books and copy summary/dication
• Added our notebooking pages to our binder and stamped our passports!

Books to Use

Resources and Websites

• National Geographic for Kids ~ Canada
• Time for Kids ~ Canada
• Travel for Kids ~ books and recommendations for Canada
• Canadian Government website
• Canada for Kids
• K-12 Study Canada plans and links
• Canadian Rainforest video
• Teachnology ~ lesson plans about Canada
• National Geographic ~ photos of Nunavik territory
• Expedition Canada {coming soon} ~ unit from Amanda Bennett

Putting Faces to Blogs

This past weekend I attended the Relevant Conference and was BLESSED beyond measure to not only walk away having put up close and personal faces to so many different blogging friends, but also to have soaked in some amazing teaching and learned some new things. You can get a more detailed look at my thoughts here, but here are a few of the amazing ladies that I got to meet in person!!

I spent the bulk of my time with my lovely roomie Carisa from 1+1+1=1 and Totally Tots.

Kris from Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers ~ we spent several hours driving up and back…much fun! Ask her if she shared her sweet tea with me…

Jen from Daze of Adventure…

Crystal from Money Saving Mom {so wonderfully sweet!}

Jill from Reflections on Becoming and Excellence of Wisdom drove over to meet us on Saturday afternoon for a bit.

Stef Layton from Layton Family Joy and also a co-creator of The Homeschool Village…{this was at the Bible in 90 Days meet-up}.

There were so many others that I was able to met also…and I know there are more pictures floating around somewhere…so I may have more to share later, but wanted to share a few for now!

Our Classroom Plant {Science Sunday}

We finished up our study on human development a few weeks ago and are now learning all about botany and trees with Nancy Larson Science 1. This week we took a ‘field trip’ of sorts to Walmart with one quest ~ to find a ‘classroom plant’. After much debating, we settled on a peace lily since the pickings were pretty slim mid-October.

Over the next few weeks, our plant will be a central part of our learning. We’ve been talking about what plants need to live and the primary parts of plants: roots, stems, leaves and flowers.

Right now we’re drawing pictures of our plant, labeling the parts of the plant, and observing it up close and personal

We also had some fun exploring and collecting five different types of leaves from around our house and using Peterson First Guide to Trees to identify the types of trees that the leaves came from. We later talked about the parts of trees {roots, trunk, branches, twigs, and leaves}.

It’s been a great season for us to be talking about trees since the weather has cooled off and we have some great places to go on nature walks and get a hands-on look at a huge variety of trees {and get some energy out at the same time}. But shhh!! Don’t tell them I said that!

Check out some other great science ideas at Science Sunday hosted by Ticia at Adventures in Mommydom.

 

Preschool Corner ~ Fall Time

We had a shorter week because I headed out of town for a few days to attend the Relevant Conference. I’m so excited to be together with an amazing group of women ~ including Carisa {from 1+1+1=1} and Kris {from Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers}…but that’s a post for another day!

Before I left we had a few days of time where we started a unit on fall. We’ll continue more next week with a focus on pumpkins since our pumpkin patch trip was rescheduled and that will tie in nicely {dontcha think?}. Here are a few highlights of our week:

Fall Leaf Mobile ~ The older three went on a leaf hunt, so Kaleb picked a few of his own too. His were rather dry and crunchy, so we used a bunch of tissue paper leaves that I laminated and hung them from a twig to make a mobile to decorate our school room.

Nature Collage ~ Kaleb’s collection of leaves, flowers and sticks was glued to a piece of paper to grace our walls. :)

Leave Jumping ~ We put different colored leaves on the floor {from the dollar section at Target, I think} and Kaleb had fun jumping, hopping, stepping or leaping from one leaf to another when I called out a color for him to hop to/from.

Acorn Tic Tac Toe ~ I posted about our season tic tac toe board yesterday, but Kaleb had so much fun trying to learn how to play Tic Tac Toe with this. We played it over and over and over…

Fall Sensory Bin ~ A lot of beans, fall leaves, acorns, and tiny gourds that the boys have had fun playing with all week.

Gray Squirrel Rhyme ~ Just because I think it’s fun to embarrass myself, here’s a little rhyme that we’re doing too. I’m MUCH more enthusiastic when doing it with Kaleb…but since this is going out into the great wide web world, I’ll spare you a little enthusiasm {no snickers, please}.

Stories & Books We Used

Ready to Link Up?

Share what you are doing with your kids! Please link your exact blog post to the Mr. Linky below and link back here too! The updated guidelines can be found here if you need them.

More Preschool Links:

• Our Preschool Tools and Favorites
• ABC Printables
• Color and Shape Printables
• Preschool Lapbooks and Tot Books: Policemen, fireman and more!
• Learning Songs
• Math and Counting Printables
• Phonics and Reading Printables
• Science Printables
• Preschool Corner Guidelines
• Preschool Planning Pages
• Preschool Resources Main Page

Main Dish Menu Planner

If you plan meals {or even if you don’t!} and are looking for a cute way to organize your favorite meals and recipes, be sure to check out my Main Dish Menu Planner that I posted on our family blog ~ and the best news is, you can fill it in and save it on your computer!!

I also shared how I use the meal planner and plan out our meals a month at a time. This handy page has helped me save so much time when it comes to planning!